Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants: 4 THE ALTO KNIGHTS: Considering the people involved here, this should have been a crackerjack of a crime thriller instead of the interesting but leaden film it is. I found the information valuable: the rivalry-cum-warfare in the US gangster underworld in the 1950s and how that led to an infamous summit meeting that finally revealled that organized crime was national, not just local as the FBI was saying. Other films have told parts of that; this one brings them all together but not too clearly. And yet it's made and played by old hands of the genre: Barry Levinson, directed, Nicholas Pileggi, wrote it, some actors you'll recognize from The Sopranos are in it and up front is Robert De Niro, two of him. He plays both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese who were long-time friends and then rivals for control of a major crime family. Vito was out of the country for eight years avoiding the law. Frank ran the business with a softer touch, no drugs, less prostitution, pay off the right people, act like a public citizen. Then Vito came back, demanded control, pushed drugs and even tried to have Frank killed. Life with their wives (Debra Messing with Frank and Katherine Narducci with Vito) is detailed. A divorce figures highly and exposes much, as does a Congressional investigation where Frank is grilled and needed to take the 5th amendment multiple times. “They got him,” says one of his associates watching TV. The film is full of good details like that but they don't work together to explain things properly and keep us captivated. So I don't see much reason for this movie right now, except for the stunt casting of De Niro which he performs seamlessly. (In theaters) 3 out of 5 SANTOSH: Here’s a fine police procedural from India that has two benefits for us. One: it’s a good mystery as a new police officer, Santosh, takes over the job of her recently deceased husband, and investigates the rape and murder of a young girl. Second: the film tells you a great deal about India, the northern rural area it is set in and the class divisions there. The girl was of the class called “chamar” which used to be called “untouchable” and though the term is used only once the reality is there. When her father reported her missing, the police slighted him and even laughed. One blames the modern ways of girls these days. She was a little darker than most, a young girl tells Santosh and implies that’s what attracted a young man who romanced her. He’s the prime suspect but is hard to find. Only calls left on her cell phone point to him. We’re tightly drawn into the investigation, learning much about rural Indian society along the way and getting a good overview from a veteran female inspector (Sunita Rajwar) who Santosh (Shahana Goswami) works with on the case. There are two types of untouchables, she says: those who can’t be touched, and those who won’t touch. Nobody wanted to take the body to the morgue, for instance. In another complication, the suspect is a Muslim. And in a third one: the older cop who is wise and talks up the rights of women is also quick to judge and extremely violent with the suspect. A lot of pre-conceptions are challenged even as feminist ideas are offered. It’s a thoughtful film by Sandhya Suri, whose background in making documentaries pays off well. (Select theaters) 3 ½ out of 5 LUCY: THE STOLEN LIVES OF ELEPHANTS: You see them at circuses or theme parks happily performing for you, standing up, taking in treats with their trunks, pampered like friends by the trainers. This film says that’s all a lie. Those animals are being mistreated. They’re not meant to be in captivity; they need to roam and spend their time with other elephants. Experts say they need “enrichment” to be mentally active. But they’re often in chains, in stress and traumatized. They’re usually prodded with long poles with hooks on the end, a common method used to train them. Some undercover footage shot at zoos is included and is hard to watch. Filmmaker and activist Fern Levitt starts her treatise at a zoo in Edmonton where Lucy has been kept for decades and demonstrators have called for her release. They want her to be sent to an elephant sanctuary where she can live with others like her. She doesn’t seem to belong in the snow we see in some scenes. We visit other zoos. In Argentina there’s an elephant in a concrete pit. At an American zoo tourists pay money to wash an elephant, which a biologist argues is not positive, such close interaction causes “a great deal of damage.” There’s more: we learn about shady international sales, zoos claiming to be promoting conservation but accused of exploitation, habitat improvements that haven’t helped and relocations that have worked. Best of all we learn a lot about elephants as a species. Kicking a soccer ball or playing a harmonica that we see in the film is not natural. It’s often with physical punishment that they’re trained to entertain us. (In select theaters. Already in Edmonton; Toronto now and Hamilton and others soon) 4 out of 5